Light Table is based on a very simple idea: we need a real work surface to code on, not just an editor and a project explorer. We need to be able to move things around, keep clutter down, and bring information to the foreground in the places we need it most.

This project is inspired by Bret Victor’s presentation Inventing on Principal that I also mentioned Nilai is inspired by. Light Table makes for a very interesting demo. The most intriguing of the modes shown was the mode wherein you could see all of the related code while you were editing, say, a specific method in a class. This type of IDE wouldn’t just save time, it’d probably result in far better code.